1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to billing a subscriber for content delivered over a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Networks of general purpose computer systems and specialized devices connected by external communication links are well known and widely used in commerce. The networks often include one or more network devices that facilitate the passage of information between the computer systems and devices. A network node is a network device or computer or specialized device connected by the communication links. An end node is a network node that is configured to originate or terminate communications over the network. An intermediate network node facilitates the passage of data between end nodes.
Subscribers obtain access to a packet-switched network (PSN) of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) through a network access gateway. The network access gateway determines whether an entity attempting access is in fact a subscriber authorized to access the network by exchanging packets with an Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) server.
A modern ISP can offer different services to different subscribers. To deliver these special services, service gateways are included in the ISP packet switched networks. Service gateways are processes that operate on intermediate network nodes between the source and the destination of data packets. The service gateways read data from a payload of a data packet to provide the networking service. Example services include payload translation and other changes to the contents of a payload, as well as special billing, rating, filtering services, network quality of service and other services that do not modify the contents of a payload. Network quality of service refers to techniques for providing different treatment for different flows of data packets between a subscriber's end node and a remote end node reached through the ISP's network. Rather than forwarding all packets of all flows with the same best effort, some flows receive preferential treatment in terms of more bandwidth, guaranteed minimum bandwidth, shorter delays, less variability in arrival time (such variability is called jitter) or less noise, or other benefits, alone or in some combination.
An intermediate network node that provides network quality of service keeps statistics used for allocating forwarding resources for various flows. Currently, billing does not reflect whether a subscriber's data flows receive treatment that matches the network quality of service for which the subscriber has contracted.